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The back cover says "Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Award for Historical Crime Novel of the Year 1171." The CWA is an organisation with a long history, but this is ridiculous.
In fact it won the award in 2007, so I don't know why it has taken me so long to read it. Perhaps I resisted it because I heard about it from a client who was a friend of the author, and reacted perversely. It has been known. Ariana Franklin (real name Diana Norman, married to film critic Barry Norman) died in 2011. Then, some time ago (and I've just spent longer than I should have, trying and failing to work out just how long ago), I was at a mini-festival of crime fiction at the Lit & Phil where one of the guests was Samantha Norman, who had been completing the book left unfinished by her mother at her death (this must have been Winter Siege). When the panel were invited to read a passage from their latest book, she chose instead to read a passage from her mother's writing, in which Adelia Aguilar, the eponymous Mistress of the Art of Death is introduced. This struck me as a little odd (and I assumed at the time it was from the book she was working on; all the odder since I now realise it can't have been) but it was intriguing and well written, and made me a lot more interested in reading the books. So when a fellow member of the Graphic Novels Reading Group offered to lend me this one, I was happy to accept.
It is, I now see, a book you would want to lend to people so that you could discuss it with them afterwards.
( Because... )
Do I recommend this book? Well, how squeamish are you about bodies and nasty murders described in vivid if indirect detail? Will you spot glaring anachronisms that I missed? Will they spoil your enjoyment? Your mileage may vary: but I'll be looking out for the next in the series.
In fact it won the award in 2007, so I don't know why it has taken me so long to read it. Perhaps I resisted it because I heard about it from a client who was a friend of the author, and reacted perversely. It has been known. Ariana Franklin (real name Diana Norman, married to film critic Barry Norman) died in 2011. Then, some time ago (and I've just spent longer than I should have, trying and failing to work out just how long ago), I was at a mini-festival of crime fiction at the Lit & Phil where one of the guests was Samantha Norman, who had been completing the book left unfinished by her mother at her death (this must have been Winter Siege). When the panel were invited to read a passage from their latest book, she chose instead to read a passage from her mother's writing, in which Adelia Aguilar, the eponymous Mistress of the Art of Death is introduced. This struck me as a little odd (and I assumed at the time it was from the book she was working on; all the odder since I now realise it can't have been) but it was intriguing and well written, and made me a lot more interested in reading the books. So when a fellow member of the Graphic Novels Reading Group offered to lend me this one, I was happy to accept.
It is, I now see, a book you would want to lend to people so that you could discuss it with them afterwards.
( Because... )
Do I recommend this book? Well, how squeamish are you about bodies and nasty murders described in vivid if indirect detail? Will you spot glaring anachronisms that I missed? Will they spoil your enjoyment? Your mileage may vary: but I'll be looking out for the next in the series.
